Chapter 64:

A rack of mammole bones was hanging on the wall to her left. Rajani grabbed an unfinished pike and swung it wildly at Chief. He dodged her blow with ease. She lunged after him, barely noticing the water of the curing pool beneath her feet. She would get him, by Gather and Hunt, if this were the last thing she did, Rajani would find some way to get him!

But Chief was not Pratap. He didn’t care about making himself seem like a good fighter for the sake of an audience. No, Chief was a grown man, and he was stronger than Rajani would ever be. In moments she found the pike wrenched out of her hands. Another moment passed, and she was falling backwards, splashing to the ground. Before she could rise, Chief had turned the pike around so that its shaft was pressing against her chest, trapping her in the pool.

Unable to move, Rajani spat at Chief. He slapped her.

“You want to feed Gather’s Children?” he hissed. “Is that what this is about?”

“Let me go!”

Chief was snarling in her face. “This land can only sustain a thousand people. Our ancestors knew that, and they set up rigorous methods to ensure that around a thousand people would continue to survive. And those methods are regulated deaths: the deaths of hunters out in the volcanoes, and the deaths of Gather’s Children. If there’s not enough food, someone has to die. The gods determine how much life is enough. Not us.”

“No!”

“No?”

“The gods told us to share,” Rajani insisted, blinking away tears. “That whatever we ate in our poverty would be enough. That if we insisted on fulfillment we would lose the ability to be satisfied. All of this is happening to us because we’re refusing to obey!”

Chief fell silent. When he spoke again, his voice had softened.

“I heard of Bharan’s proposal. It’s a noble effort. But it’s not going to work. The women overbelters are just as bad as the men. Even if most of them didn’t participate in the riots directly, they didn’t stop their menfolk either. I’m sorry for it, but they all have to die.”

Struggling against the pike, Rajani cried out, “To be Cursed is to be a Gather’s Child! How we treat them is how we treat ourselves! Don’t start us down a path where you and I could someday be put inside the castra-dome without being able to say a word in our defense!”

But Chief shook his head. “I am nothing like those overbelters. And neither, Rajani, are you. Listen to me. Go into the castra-dome as one of my hunters. I’ll arm you the way I armed Pratap. When the order comes to kill the Gather’s Children, you make your choice then. Either you fight with the hunters to get rid of the Gather’s Children, or you are killed by the hunters as one of the Gather’s Children.”

“Never,” Rajani whispered.

Chief’s face darkened. “Then I’ll have to arrest you for attacking me.”

Rajani knew what that meant. She would be found guilty and sentenced to the castra-dome without any weapons to protect her. Trapped, trapped! Chief had trapped her and brought her down like a hunter his prey.

A voice rang out in the doorway. “Let her go.”

It was Jiat. No, not just Jiat. Kebet, and Bharan, and Lainla, and Mylin, and two of the four hunters from the meeting by the hanging library.

Slowly, Chief rose. He dragged Rajani to her feet, gripping her arm. “This citizen is under arrest,” he said. “As hunters I delegate you to accompany her to the dais to be tried. If there is no room on this eventide’s docket, I order you to accompany her to the castra-dome to wait until the next trials are held.”

Chief had thought of everything. Breathing heavily, Rajani averted her gaze from the hunters at the door. She didn’t want to look at anyone or be looked at by anyone, not now, not in her defeat.

“Chief,” Bharan said. “Why are you working with the old-Tabled Cursed against us?”

“You are fools,” Chief spat. “You think just because you were born on the Cursed side of the shelterbelt that the old-Tabled Cursed will accept you. You’re wrong. You take for granted what we fought to have.”

Bharan persisted. “Chief, my proposal will pass if you don’t oppose it.”

It was no use. Chief yanked on Rajani’s arm. “This citizen is under arrest. Take her to the dais. Now.”

Nobody moved.

“Very well. All of you are now under arrest for disobeying my orders.”

Rajani’s eyes widened. All of them – including Lainla – including Bharan, who was to deliver his proposal tomorrow –

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“No!” she cried out. “Chief, they’ll take me to the dais. They’ll arrest me. I’ll even confess to it, so you won’t have to prove it.”

In response, Chief released her arm and pushed her forward. Rajani stumbled out of the curing pool and met Kebet and Jiat at its edge. As soon as they were out of the forge, Kebet grabbed her shoulder. “You don’t have to do this!”

But Jiat shook his head. “No, she’s right. Bharan has to be free tomorrow to deliver his proposal.”

“One of us could go with you,” Kebet protested.

Rajani shook her head. “Bharan’s proposal has to pass. You have to stay here, all of you.” She looked around at the others. “Talk to as many people as you can. Get them to convince their lodge mothers. Tell the old-Tabled Cursed that Rajani will do whatever penance they want her to, if only they vote for Bharan’s proposal.”

“Rajani –” Lainla’s eyes were full of tears.

Shrugging off Kebet and Jiat, Rajani held her hand out to her sister. “It’s okay,” she said. “All of it – it’s okay.”

Lainla gripped her hand. “I’ll do the run for you. I’ll get you out.”

“I know,” Rajani replied. “But make sure Bharan’s proposal passes first.”

Once more Rajani stood on the dais. This time the eternal fire, its flames flickering and hissing in the wet wind, was to her left. Next to it, on the platform’s far side, stood Chief Bikash.

One of the lodge mothers stepped forward. “Rajani, lead hunter of the Jinkari Table, you are accused by Bikash, lead hunter of the Rikam Table, Chief of all hunters. He accuses you of attacking him, of disobeying him, and of inciting other hunters to disobedience against him. How do you respond?”

“I confess it.”

A murmur spread through the crowd. Rajani supposed they had expected her to put up more of a fight, but she had given her word to Chief; she had nothing more to give.

“You have nothing to say?”

I have nothing, Rajani thought. Seven years and I’m back here on this dais next to the same man, headed back to the same castra-dome. Only this time I’m alone. Without even an expectation that things will change. Just a desperate hope.

Rajani looked out onto the atreola, at her people gathered there to watch her be condemned. She shook her head.

“So be it,” the lodge mother said. “You will be escorted to the castra-dome to serve a sentence the moot determines is just. Willing hunters, take her there.”

***

Rajani placed her hands on the scaffold railing. If she peered out from under the canopy, past the curtain of breathflowers, she could make out the Cursed urb through the bio-dome’s dark and yellow bones. Behind her, the castra-dome chute was waiting. Kebet, Jiat, Bharan and Mylin stood behind her as well. They had accompanied her across the rope bridge, and now they were waiting to see her down the chute.

Rajani closed her eyes. She knew she should go. She had lingered by the edge of the mountainside scaffold for long enough, and the rain was pattering on her head, re-wetting the fur on her collar. Still, she remained where she was, unable to accept the turn her tale had taken. Was this really it? Could this possibly be the end?

A fierce, silent rejection rose up inside her. This can’t be it, she wailed. This can’t be it. It can’t, it can’t! Oh, please, don’t let this be it, don’t let this be the end! Change it, make it different, rescue it, rescue me, please!

The rain continued to fall on Rajani’s head. No one came running down the rope bridge to tell her she could come back. No lightning struck the dais to shock the Cursed into obedience.

But then, the rain stopped. Rajani could still feel the water lashing against her face, but her eyes, open now, saw the sun hanging high above her. Was it real? Yes, it was real, it was realer than life itself, it was life, a waking vision she had walked into simply by opening her eyes.

The Cursed urb – her urb – stretched out before her. Every part of it, from the shelterbelt to the bio-dome’s edge, was bathed in sunlight. The pathways between the lodges and smokehouses and meal benches teemed with life. Hunters and Gather’s Children, lodge mothers and myxte Cursed, lexikosts and old-Tabled Cursed, they all filled the urb, laughing, talking, drinking, feasting, praying, loving. Their faces showed no fear.

Rajani sought her own lodge. There was Lainla, delight in her smile. There was Mamai, peace written into the lines on her face. There was Abha, there was Tanush – all the Jinkari Table members were gathered there together.

With them was Rajani.

From where she stood Rajani couldn’t tell whether the vision of herself was wearing the hood of a lodge mother or the sheathed boots of a hunter. But she could see the joy in her shining face. Such joy…

Rajani blinked. The skies were once more dark and cloud-filled. An endless rain fell wherever she looked.

“Rajani?” Kebet called.

Slowly, Rajani turned. Her heart ached with a sweet, sharp pain, and a whisper, threaded through with fire, was burning in her soul. Your story isn’t over yet.

“It’s okay,” she said. “It’s okay. The gods – they’re going to bring us back.”